Argentina faces runoff poll to decide presidency

Argentinians looked set to choose their president in a run-off for the first time after exit polls from the initial round of voting put Carlos Menem, the flamboyant former leader blamed for the country's economic collapse, and a fellow member of his Peronist party neck and neck.

With 5.1 per cent of the ballot tallied, 72-year-old Mr Menem, who is seeking a third term, led with 25 per cent of the vote, a whisker ahead of his rival, the left-of-centre Nestor Kirchner, on 22.6 per cent. Lopez Murphy was trailing in third with 16.7 per cent.

If the same result emerges when counting of the ballots is completed, the two men will contest a run-off on 18 May ­ the first two-round presidential vote since democracy was established 20 years ago. Polling had shown the lead candidates, including the tough-talking economist Ricardo Lopez Murphy, at level pegging right up to voting day as the country seeks a leader to end more than a year of political turmoil and economic disaster.

Sixteen months after Argentina went through five presidents in two weeks, the people were hoping for political renewal. Then, their rallying cry was "they must all go", referring to the corrupt, feudal political class they blamed for the country's bankruptcy. Yet to the consternation of many voters, all the former presidents have remained in the frame.

The dispirited voters, half of whom live in poverty and one in five of whom is unemployed, are so divided that pundits cannot predict a clear result. Mr Menem's free-market policies in the 1990s, when the peso was pegged to the dollar, brought brief prosperity to Argentina as foreign investment flooded in. But he left office in 1999 in a welter of corruption scandals.

He was tried for smuggling arms to Croatia and Ecuador during his first presidency, but the Supreme Court shelved the case in 2001. Then he was accused of taking $10m (£6.3m) from Iran for covering up Tehran's alleged involvement in blowing up a Jewish social centre in Buenos Aires in 1994. He has protested his innocence.

Mr Menem has made a political recovery in the past year, rejuvenated by the popularity of his pregnant Chilean wife, Cecilia Bolocco, 37, a former Miss Universe and television presenter. He promises to rebuild bridges burnt when Argentina defaulted on $141bn (£89bn) of foreign debt in December 2001. Savers and investors lost billions.

Whoever wins faces the task of getting millions of people back into school or workand bringing crime under control.